Why should you care?

Understanding require/import, process.env, and the module system prevents mysterious startup failures in production.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into your MeanVerse project (Angular + Express + MongoDB), then run with ng serve / node / mongosh as noted.

// api/src/server.ts
import http from 'node:http';
import { env } from './config/env.js';

const server = http.createServer((_req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' });
  res.end(JSON.stringify({ service: 'meanverse-api', uptime: process.uptime() }));
});

server.listen(env.port, () => {
  process.stdout.write(`Listening on ${env.port}\n`);
});

What happened?

• node:http is built-in.
• process.uptime() shows seconds since start.
• env.port centralizes config — same pattern before adding Express.

Practice next

1. Run node -e "console.log(process.version)".
2. Create server.ts and start with ts-node or node.
3. Import a local module with relative path.
4. Switch to createServer with Express app.listen delegate.
5. Log process.memoryUsage() after warm traffic.

Remember

Node = V8 + libuv + standard libraries. Modules isolate code; npm manages dependencies. process.env drives configuration.

API health probe

Kubernetes liveness checks MeanVerse /health endpoint.

Outcome: Minimal Node handler proves process is alive.